'For Talat's film 'DIL E NADAAN', famous producer A.R. Kardar launched
an 'All India Beauty Contest' to hunt for a new heroine to act
opposite this immensely popular and much sought after Singing Star.
The contest was sponsored by "Kolynos" the then leading brand of
toothpaste. The winner was beautiful Peace Kanwal and she did the
romantic lead opposite Talat. It was a dream come true for her !
Which girl in those days would not have given her right ear to come
face to face with this handsome King Of Ghazals !!!
'

( The
under-production name 'Nashaad' was later changed to 'DIL E
NADAAN' )

The 50's was
the era of the Singing Star. America had
Elvis Presley, England had
Cliff Richard and India had Talat Mahmood ! Handsome, good looking men
with fantastic voices and a distinguished style of singing that was
all their own. The mere mention of their names on the silver screen
was enough to pull in female crowds looking for gentle romantic fare,
with clean cut story lines. Whether Elvis, Cliff or Talat, these
singers were packaged and presented on the silver screen with the
utmost of care. Nothing was left to chance. For them, it was nothing
but the
biggest producers, the biggest banners, the topmost heroines and of
course, hand picked music composers to create those scintillating musical scores !

***
When producer
Sohrab Modi (the Cecil B. DeMille of Indian Cinema) conceived the film
'WARIS' for the reigning singing superstar Talat Mahmood, he decided
to bring in the highly respected Director Nitin Bose, renowned for introducing playback singing
to Indian Cinema and later for directing the great Dilip Kumar's
magnum opus 'Ganga Jamuna'. Not just one,
but two top heroines were signed up to play the lead opposite Talat
Mahmood - Suraiya, the highest paid heroine of her time and the beautiful Nadira
! Apart from being the top stars of the day, they were
also great fans of this handsome singer and welcomed the chance to
team up with the
Ghazal King. 'WARIS' of course, was a hit!

***
Famous producer - director A.R. Kardar,
signed up Talat Mahmood for his musical venture Dil e Nadaan. An
all India
beauty contest was then launched to find a heroine to star opposite mega
star Talat Mahmood for this film ! The winner was lovely Peace Kanwal.
After acting in Dil e Nadaan, she got married to a well known
industrialist and gave up acting completely.

***
Talat Mahmood
starred in the 1957 hit Ek
Gaon Ki Kahani with the lovely Mala Sinha as heroine,
directed by well
known director Dulal Guha and produced by Satyen Bose ( who has also
produced one of the biggest hits and highest box office grossers of
all time - 'Dosti' )

***
Producer S.U. Sunny, who had earlier made the Dilip Kumar starrers Babul and
Udan Khatola, cast the striking singer-duo of Talat
Mahmood and Suraiya for his film Maalik.

***
Despite the presence of Dev Anand and Madhubala in Araam, the
star appeal of Talat Mahmood was used to boost the box
office ratings of the film !

A still from film "AARAM"
Despite the presence of Dev Anand and Madhubala in Araam, the
star appeal of Talat Mahmood
was used to boost the box
office ratings of the film !

SHYAMA
actress

CINE
BLITZ magazine - MARCH '85

"Co-starring
with Talat Mahmood in LALA ROOKH was a dream come true
for me. Even though this was my second film with him, my heart
would still miss a beat whenever we acted together ! He
was my heart-throb for as long as I can remember and I
made it a point never to miss a song of his on the radio. One
thing about Talat was that he was almost perfect, hardly
troubling his directors with
re-takes".

MID-DAY
19th NOV 2006

"Very few people
know that I was in love with him. It started as the crush of a
fan, but I was destined to meet him too. He proved to be every
bit the heartthrob anyone could imagine."

Click to enlarge the article

Talat Mahmood is the
only singing star of the Indian film industry to
have such a huge female fan following !

Talat with the vivacious
Nadira in "RAFTAAR"

Talat playing a dashing
prince in "LALA ROOKH"

Talat with lovely Shyama
in "LALA ROOKH"

Handsome and debonair Talat in "DIL E
NADAAN"

SCENES FROM 'MAALIK'

THE
CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE MAKERS OF "MELA", "BABUL", "URAN
KHATOLA"!!!

After NAUSHAD's home production had produced super hits "MELA",
"BABUL", "URAN KHATOLA" working
with the GREATEST actor of the film industry DILIP KUMAR, in 1958
NAUSHAD PRODUCTIONS made another
super hit "MAALIK", a film produced by Naushad's own production
house, in which the 'KING OF GHAZALS' &
top SINGING STAR TALAT MAHMOOD was the hero and the highest paid
actress of her time SINGING STAR SURAIYA was the heroine!

PHOTO SHOOT BY A TOP MAGAZINE WITH
TALAT MAHMOOD AND NADIRA
STARS ON THE FILMFARE COVER - NADIRA & TALAT MAHMOOD
Says Nadira about her leading man Talat - "I love working with Talat.
He is one of the few real gentlemen
we have in the industry. Talat is courteous, considerate, patient
and co-operative!